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Memorandum on Certain Aspects of the Bolshevist Movement in Russia - A U.S. Government Report from 1919

MEMORANDUM

on

Certain Aspects of the Bolshevist Movement in Russia

Character of Bolshevist Rule

Economic Results of Bolshevist Control

Bolshevist Program of World Revolution

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

1919

OCTOBER 27, 1919.

Hon. HENRY CABOT LODGE,

Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.

Sir: I have the honor to send you herewith, for the information of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, a memorandum on certain aspects of the Bolshevist movement in Russia.

The memorandum has been prepared from original sources by the Division of Russian Affairs of the Department of State. As you will see, the statements are based almost entirely on translations from Bolshevist newspapers. These include the official organs of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, of local Soviet committees, and of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The Bolsheviks' own statements are supplemented by the reports of American representatives.

The appendix contains the full text of representative Bolshevist documents. The text of other documents, such as the constitution of the so-called Soviet Republic, will be found in the published hearings on Bolshevist propaganda before the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate, and for that reason are not reproduced here.

Since the overthrow of the autocracy in March, 1917, the Department of State has studied developments in Russia with the sympathy which America has traditionally shown toward all movements for political and social betterment. The study which has been made of the Bolshevist movement, some of the results of which are furnished herewith, show conclusively that the purpose of the Bolsheviks is to subvert the existing principles of government and society the world over, including those countries in which democratic institutions are already established. They have built up a political machine which, by the concentration of power in the hands of a few and the ruthlessness of its methods, suggests the Asiatic despotism of the early Tsars. The results of their exercise of power, as shown by the documents presented in the accompanying memorandum, have been demoralization, civil war, and economic collapse. I commend to your careful consideration the detailed information which the memorandum contains.

I am addressing a similar letter to the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives.

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What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfil the mission assigned to it by the Creator.

If a comrade of ours opens a Jewish newspaper in the morning and does not find himself vilified there, then he has spent yesterday to no account. For if he had achieved something he would be persecuted, slandered, derided and abused. Those who effectively combat this mortal enemy of our people, who is at the same time the enemy of all Aryan peoples and all culture, can only expect to arouse opposition on the part of this race and become the object of its slanderous attacks. - Mein Kampf, p. 200